Platinum Explorer on time
Houston-based Vantage Energy is on track to deploy its new-build deepwater drillship Platinum Explorer to Indian waters by end-November to begin a five-year contract with ONGC.
Contractors supplying tools and equipment to the 6th generation drillship report good progress at the Daewoo shipyard in South Korea where Platinum Explorer is under construction alongside Discoverer India, a new-build contracted to Reliance. Still unclear is where ONGC will deploy Platinum Explorer.
“Most likely it’ll go to the east coast,” we hear. “ONGC has so many blocks it could go anywhere.
” In March 2009, Vantage announced it had hired Platinum Explorer to ONGC on a five-year contract. Months earlier, PETROWATCH reported the two sides had agreed an Operating Day Rate of $585,000, and an Effective Day Rate of $642,285.
Designed to drill in 12,000-ft water depths, Platinum Explorer’s confirmed deployment stands in sharp contrast to continued uncertainty over the deployment date of Sevan Marine, also a ‘new-build’, from Norway’s cash-strapped Sevan Drilling.